Inside the Global Gambling Scorecard: An Interview with Dr. Daria Ukhova

_{Dr Daria Ukhova was part of the research team. (Image: Dr Daria Ukhova)}

Casinos.com sat down with Dr. Daria Ukhova from Glasgow University, a public health policy analyst and one of the architects behind the new Global Gambling Control Scorecard.

The Scorecard offers the first comparative benchmark of gambling regulations across 34 European jurisdictions, highlighting where countries are protecting citizens from gambling harm, and where they’re falling short.

Dr. Ukhova explains the motivation behind the Scorecard, what it reveals about global regulation, and why it could reshape how gambling is governed worldwide.

Why the Scorecard Was Needed

To start, Ukhova explained that gambling harms extend far beyond individual players. They cut across sectors and demand joined-up solutions, something few countries currently achieve.

"It really requires joined-up, multi-sectoral policy responses across health, finance, education, gambling regulation, and other sectors," she said.

"What we found in our earlier Global Review of Gambling Legislation, published in Lancet Public Health a couple of years ago, is that gambling policy remains very siloed. Most systems rely on quite narrow technical solutions, and the broader social and health dimensions of gambling are often overlooked.

At the same time, there's been no robust international framework that would allow countries to compare their gambling control systems and learn from each other, especially at the moment when many governments are actively reforming their laws."

Ukhova said the Scorecard fills that gap by offering a shared framework for measuring progress. It defines what a strong, integrated system looks like and allows stakeholders to benchmark policies.

"And by gambling control here, we refer to a range of policy measures aimed at protecting individuals from the health and other kinds of harms associated with gambling. And that's exactly the gap that Global Gambling Control Scorecard is designed to address."

Listen to the Full Interview on Our Podcast

Key Findings from the Research

The new benchmarking tool for gambling regulation launched by University of Glasgow experts is the first of its kind worldwide.

As she and her team dug deeper into the global regulatory landscape, Ukhova was struck by how narrow most responses still are.

Ukhova said: "The most surprising thing there was how individually focused gambling policies remain. While there is a certain move towards more systemic approaches, like focus on the product design, marketing, so more supply side factors, there are European jurisdictions like Germany, for example, that are moving in that direction."

"But that's a very slow move. And if we look globally, yeah, most of the countries are still with very individually focused approaches. And one of the scorecard's goals is to improve protection for players."

The Value of Comparison

Ukhova said the Scorecard's strength lies in its ability to let countries learn from each other. Without shared data, many end up repeating the same mistakes.

"In very simple terms, comparison helps countries learn faster and make fewer mistakes along the way. Policymakers and regulators and civil society groups are constantly trying to design better protections for people, but they often don't have a clear picture of what's already working elsewhere."

"Even in a very connected world, that information gap is still surprisingly large. What the scorecard does is make those differences visible in a systematic way. It shows side by side where protections are strong, where they're missing and what tools other countries are using."

She cited fieldwork in Georgia as a concrete example of how these insights lead to reform.

"We saw it very clearly in our knowledge exchange workshops with gambling harm prevention stakeholders in Georgia. Simply being able to compare their system with other country systems, especially those of other Eastern European states, immediately generated concrete ideas for reform."

Broader Use Beyond Regulators

Although originally built for policymakers and regulators, the Scorecard is already being embraced by a broader audience, including those directly affected by gambling.

"I think it's a tool that may appeal [to a] broader audience. And again, returning to Georgia, which was our implementation case study, essentially. The organisation that we worked with there was actually founded by former players who now work both in the treatment space.

So they help people who want to stop gambling to stop gambling. And at the same time, they're also involved in advocacy. So they occupy kind of, you know, multiple positions, so to say.

So they, you know, they are former players who are using this scorecard and actually helped to shape it."

Implications for the Gambling Industry

Asked whether gambling operators have reason to engage with the Scorecard, Ukhova pointed out that while the project doesn't cater to business incentives, it does reflect evolving regulatory standards that businesses can't ignore.

"The scorecard isn't built around business incentives. It's built around the understanding of gambling harms as a public health issue and of the need for regulatory accountability. But operators operate within those systems, as you know better than I, whether they like it or not."

"So the relevance for them is not how do we resist this, but how do we understand the standards that are now being used to judge gambling regulation across countries. And engaging with that landscape is ultimately about anticipating regulatory risk, not maximising short-term returns."

Addressing Offshore and Unregulated Gambling

Turning to the unregulated and offshore gambling sector, Ukhova said the Scorecard can help governments identify gaps in their enforcement tools, even if it can't solve those problems outright.

"From a public health perspective, what matters first is whether states have even equipped themselves with the legal tools to restrict illegal and offshore gambling. The scorecard shows very clearly that even in some European jurisdictions, those tools are still absent or weak.

"That means people are structurally more exposed to unregulated products. The scorecard, of course, can't force enforcement, but it can clarify where action is urgently needed."

She pointed out that coordinated efforts could magnify impact.

"There have been international efforts to tackle, for example, offshore tax havens over recent decades. These experiences, they could provide important lessons on how the international community could tackle offshore gambling licencing hubs as well."

Where the Scorecard Can Make an Immediate Impact

In terms of readiness, Ukhova said that countries currently reforming their gambling laws stand to benefit most from the Scorecard’s insights.

"No country scores at the very top across all the dimensions. So in that sense, every jurisdiction stands to benefit from the scorecard as a benchmarking tool."

"But in the short term, it's especially relevant for countries that are actively revising or considering reform to their gambling legislation right now. And a number of these countries are in Central and Eastern Europe."

Challenges to Implementation

However, in jurisdictions where gambling revenue is politically sensitive or offshore markets are tolerated, the Scorecard may face more resistance.

"Where the scorecard's immediate impact is likely to be constrained is in political economies where gambling plays a significant role in state revenues, where regulatory bodies are financially or politically dependent, and where offshore gambling is tacitly tolerated for now."

"So in those contexts, the issue is not the absence of technical policy knowledge, it's the balance of political and economic interest."

Policy Gaps That Need Urgent Attention

Reflecting on broader policy shortcomings, Ukhova said that a narrow approach to gambling harms remains common. Multisectoral collaboration is still the exception, not the norm.

"What struck me most overall is how rarely gambling is treated as a multisectoral issue. So in most jurisdictions that we looked at, harm prevention still sits very narrowly within gambling regulation with limited integration across health, social policy, education or financial sector."

In particular, she said the neglect of gambling in financial literacy programs was eye-opening.

"Most of the countries that this version of the scorecard focusses on actually have financial literacy frameworks in place, often linked to OECD's work in this area. But almost none of these frameworks explicitly address gambling. Interestingly, Croatia was the only country where we've clearly seen gambling named within a financial education strategy."

Where to Start Fixing the System

Asked where policymakers could make the biggest impact quickly, Ukhova suggested starting with financial education.

"If we start from a place where there is nothing at all and we want to introduce something, the financial literacy strategies could definitely benefit from the inclusion of gambling into them."

A Global Future for the Scorecard

Looking to the future, Ukhova sees the Scorecard as a dynamic tool that could grow into a global standard.

"We very much see this as a living tool rather than a one-off snapshot. And with further funding, the scorecard would evolve in three main directions."

"So first, we plan to extend it to new regions beyond Europe so that we can draw genuinely global comparisons. We aim to update the data set on the regular, ideally annual basis, which would allow us to track not just how different systems compare, but how they actually change over time."

The Role of AI in Research

Finally, Ukhova confirmed that AI played a small but helpful role in supporting the research, particularly in the early stages of sourcing documents.

"AI was used to support search for documents and identifying some of the documents, but it was human that always did the final coding. We also use double coding. So there were always two humans doing that."

But, you know, of course we also use AI for searching because it's very potent and very fast."

Posting on Linkedin recently Christopher Bunn Professor of Applied Sociology at University of Glasgow announced: 

"It’s been an interesting week here at Gambling Research Glasgow… we got the exciting news that the Gambling Survey for Great Britain will continue to be led by Heather Wardle, and Gerda Reith."